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But her eyes were dry.
Raul was watching her carefully. She wailed and flailed, shaking wildly. Then, looking him straight in the eyes, writhing and crying out, she slowly winked. He didn’t change expression in any way but she saw him put more of his weight on the balls of his feet.
“Fuck this!” The guy shouted. “Settle the fuck down!”
She’d turned slippery as an eel, her head bobbing up and down, making it hard for him to keep the muzzle against her temple. His arm around her neck tightened.
Just what she needed. An anchor.
Right in the middle of a wild keening cry, trembling with spasms, Emma burst into action. It had been years since she’d trained as a gymnast, but the muscle memory was there, and she didn’t have to be perfect. She just had to create an opening for Raul.
She looked him straight in the eye, still sobbing loudly, and suddenly did a parkour move, a wall run, stepping straight up the wall, anchoring herself against the arm around her shoulders. As she did so, she pulled back, something really dangerous if she were alone. But she wasn’t alone. She was pulling back with Fake Cop, who was completely unprepared and fell straight on his back with her on top, his head meeting Raul’s knee on the way down.
On his way down, he shot his gun. The bullet simply punched a hole in her ceiling, but the gun had discharged not far from her right ear. It hurt!
She fell harmlessly right on top of him and scrambled to get out of the way, because Raul kicked away Fake Cop’s gun and kneeled and punched him in the face then put him in a chokehold. The man’s eyes opened wide in panic. Raul was like a statue, unmoving.
But above all, Raul looked … scary. His face was drawn, eyes narrowed, the muscles in his forearms ropy with effort. Even when fake cop slumped in his arms, unconscious, he continued holding him in the chokehold.
A few seconds went by, but he wasn’t loosening his hold.
Emma had gone deaf, so it was like watching a tableau from hell, with the sound turned off.
Fake Cop was turning blue and Raul showed no intention of letting up.
Emma leaped to him, pulling at his arms. It was like trying to move steel pipe. “Raul! Let go! You’re going to kill him!”
She couldn’t hear herself and apparently, he couldn’t, either.
“Raul!” she screamed at the top of her voice, though she could barely hear herself. All she could hear was a high-pitched ringing noise. He could finally hear, though. His eyes had lost their focus and now re-focused on her. He suddenly let the man drop and pulled her into his arms, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.
Raul’s head dropped to her left shoulder, near the undamaged ear. She could hear snippets through the whine. “—thought I’d lose you. I can’t believe --- where did you --?”
He was breathing heavily. Something she couldn’t hear but could feel as his chest bellowed in and out. Could it be he was trembling?
She patted his back, pet his hair. He was doing the same to her, checking for wounds. She reassured him. “It’s ok. I’m okay.”
He pulled back. He’d lost that frightening blank taut look, cupped her head. “You’re yelling.”
“What?” She couldn’t hear him over the whine in her ear, though it was rapidly dissipating
He pursed his lips, exaggerating the words. “You’re. Yelling.”
“What?”
He bent to her good ear. “You’re yelling!”
Oh. She lowered her voice to a point where she could barely hear herself. Looking down, she said, “What are we going to do about him?”
Raul got down on his haunches and frisked the man, who didn’t move.
“Is he – is he dead?”
“No,” he answered, looking up so she could read his lips. Luckily, her hearing was coming back. “Just out.”
Emma didn’t know what she felt about that. Glad he wasn’t dead because Raul might have legal problems, but still angry at the son of a bitch who’d held a gun to her head and was definitely planning on shooting Raul while kidnapping her. This was a scumbag. No doubt part of the crew of scumbags who had kidnapped Toby.
She hauled her foot back and gave Fake Cop a huge kick in the side. The son of a bitch wanted to kidnap her? Kill Raul?Take that!She was wearing boots and it was very satisfying.
